Here's how Netflix and Amazon original shows stack up against each other

Netflix
In the fight over who produces the best streaming shows, Netflix and Amazon are the two heavyweights.

Both have poured significant resources into making original shows over the last two years, and have been rewarded with good showings at the Golden Globes.

This year, Netflix led all TV networks in Globes nominations, and last year Amazon's hit, "Transparent," took home two. We should note that Hulu also scored its first Golden Globe nomination this year (for its comedy "Casual").

But since neither Netflix nor Amazon releases viewership numbers, it can be hard to tell how good their shows are on average. We know the top shows for each, but what about the rest of the catalog? We recently used data from reviews aggregator Metacritic to rank Netflix and Amazon's drama and comedy shows from best to worst — leaving out kids shows and documentaries.

But we still wanted to understand how Netflix and Amazon compared to each other, so we looked a bit closer at the data.

Our first takeaway was that there is no absolute winner, though Netflix seems to have an edge.

The whole catalog

The average critic rating for the entire show catalog gave Netflix a 69/100 on average, and Amazon a 70/100. Netflix fared better in the average audience rating, getting a 7.9/10 to Amazon's 7.2/10.

The upper tier

When we narrowed the focus to the top, Netflix's audience lead widened and it overtook Amazon with critics as well. Looking at just the top five shows from each network, Netflix got an average critic rating of 81/100 to Amazon's 76/100. The audience scores were 8.8/10 and 7.5/10 respectively.

Just the hits

Finally, we looked at just the hits, the top three three shows from each company. Netflix maintained its critics lead (84/100 versus Amazon's 80/100), and its audience lead (8.9/10 versus 7.7/10).

The rundown

While Amazon led in overall critics score, it was only by a narrow margin, and Netflix took all other categories. Netflix especially fared well with audiences. One reason for this is because Amazon's critical darlings, "Transparent" and "The Man in the High Castle," both had much lower audience ratings than critic scores.

It's important to also note that Amazon has produced half as many shows as Netflix, 8 to 16 (in the drama and comedy categories), and that both are new to the market. Netflix and Amazon both produced their first original series in 2013.

If you are curious how Netflix and Amazon's 24 shows compared on a show-by-show basis, below is a comprehensive ranking from worst to best, based on critical reception data from Metacritic:

13. "Mozart in the Jungle" (Amazon) — 73/100

Amazon

Average critic score (20 critics): 73/100

Audience score: 7.9/10

Amazon description: "What happens behind the curtains at the symphony is just as captivating as what happens on stage. Brash new maestro Rodrigo (Gael Garcia Bernal) is stirring things up, and young oboist Hailey (Lola Kirke) hopes for her big chance."

7. "The Man in the High Castle" (Amazon) — 77/100

Amazon was advertising its new series, The Man in the High Castle.
Amazon

Average critic score (30 critics): 77/100

Audience score: 6.5/10

Amazon description: "Based on Philip K. Dick's award-winning novel, and executive produced by Ridley Scott (Blade Runner), and Frank Spotnitz (The X-Files), The Man in the High Castle explores what it would be like if the Allied Powers had lost WWII, and Japan and Germany ruled the United States."

6. "Narcos" (Netflix) — 77/100

Netflix description: First they got coke. Then they got money. Now the Colombian cartels want the power. Let the drug wars begin.

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5. "The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt" (Netflix) — 78/100

Netflix

Average critic score (29 critics): 78/100

Audience score: 8.0/10

Netflix description: What's a Midwest girl to do after she's spent the last 15 years trapped underground? Move to New York City, of course.

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4. "Orange Is the New Black" (Netflix) — 79/100

Netflix

Average critic score (32 critics): 79/100

Audience score: 8.5/10

Netflix description: Piper Chapman doesn't deserve her prison sentence. Of course, every one of her fellow inmates thinks the same thing.

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3. "Jessica Jones" (Netflix) — 81/100

Myles Aronowitz/Netflix

Average critic score (30 critics): 81/100

Audience score: 7.8/10

Netflix description: She's a gifted PI hiding a past that's left her broken but still fighting. Revenge may be sweet, but she isn't.

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2. "Transparent" (Amazon) — 91/100

Amazon/"Transparent"

Average critic score (28 critics): 91/100

Audience score: 7.5/10

Amazon description: "When the Pfefferman family patriarch makes a dramatic admission, the entire family's secrets start to spill out, and each of them spin in a different direction as they begin to figure out who they are going to become."

24/

1. "Master of None" (Netflix) — 91/100

Netflix

Average critic score (31 critics): 91/100

Audience score: 7.7/10

Netflix description: Dating, career, finding a great taco — it's all hard. But becoming a mature adult is a whole other degree of difficulty.